English Language Arts, or ELA, encompasses seven main instructional areas—reading, and its counterpart, spelling; handwriting; vocabulary; grammar; composition (“writing”); and literature. With so many moving parts, the subject can seem overwhelming to teach. Do you really have to cover all of that, year after year? Yes and no. Yes, you do need to cover all…
Exploring the World through Story takes students from foundational writing skills like oral narration, copywork, and dictation, through sentence- and paragraph-level composition, and on to three-, four-, and five-paragraph essays. What writing skills should high school students learn after completing EWS? There are three additional writing goals to consider for high school students, especially those…
One of the great strengths of homeschooling is that it gives parents the ability to tailor their children’s education to their individual needs. Although Exploring the World through Story was originally designed as a K-8 program, placement is flexible; the texts in the lower levels appeal to wide range of ages, and the upper levels…
Because EWS teaches writing skills sequentially, you should choose levels based on the student’s reading and writing skills, not other programs you may be using.
I strongly urge you not to rearrange lessons in EWS. Within each level, lessons increase in difficulty as students work through the program sequentially. Rearranging lessons means that this aspect of the program, along with the built-in review, will be lost.
In general, I recommend that families choose the age or grade level of EWS appropriate for each student to assure adequate challenge and academic progress. If, however, the students are at roughly the same level in reading comprehension and writing skills, you can use the same level of EWS with both. Be mindful of the…
Because each level of EWS is carefully designed to build writing skills sequentially, I do not recommend combining levels by picking and choosing individual lessons. If your student needs to make more rapid progress to get up to grade level, consider accelerating through entire levels by doing more lessons per week. In levels A-F, students…
Wisdom tales are teaching stories that affirm cultural values—often of a religious or moral nature—through the medium of imaginative narratives. The category of wisdom tales encompasses sacred stories from the whole range of the world’s spiritual traditions, ancient and modern. It includes scriptural narratives as well as stories sometimes designated as myths or pious legends.…
If you are having trouble finding an assigned title for EWS, please let me know. When a book goes out of print, I choose an alternative and revise the curriculum as soon as possible. I always offer the updated curriculum free of charge to people who have purchased an earlier version. Details on how to…
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